Bottle cleaning apparatus



Jan. 8, 1935. G. J. MEYER 1,987Q345 v BOTTLE CLEANING-APPARATUS Filed May 51, 1952 -r-VORNEY Patented Jan. 8, 1935 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE 4 clam. (ci. 141-1) The invention relates to apparatus for the interior cleaning of bottles.

Bottles which are to be cleaned occasionally contain loose foreign substances, such as corks,

cigar stubs, and paper. These substances tend Bostr to remain in the bottles during the brushing and rinsing operations. even when the bottles are in their customary inverted position, and are spun around by the brushes, usually remaining above Ellie brushes, so that the brushes will not remove In order to remove these foreign substances from a bottle and to clean the interior surface of the bottle, it is an object of the invention to provide an injection tubev which is adapted to enter the bottlefor discharging a cleaning fluid therein, and which is formed with a toothed exterior engageable with the foreign substances to urge them out of the bottle as the tube is withdrawn.

The invention further consists in the several features hereinafter set forth and more particularly defined by the annexed claims.

In the accompanying drawing, Fig. 1 is a sectonal elevation of a bottle cleaning apparatus embodying the invention, aninjection tube thereof being inserted into a bottle, and

Fig. 2 is a fragmentary sectional elevation of the Iseipparatus showing the tube. on its withdrawal In this drawing, the numeral 10 designates the traveling conveyor of a bottle washing machine. The conveyor includes bottle-holding pockets 11 land is of the well-known side chain type in which the pockets are arranged in transversely extending rows, and in which the chains are provided with supporting rollers 12. The pockets 11 are adapted to receive bottles 13 therein, one being shown, and in that flight of the conveyor illustrated the bottles are supported in inverted position in the pockets.

An upwardly projecting injection tube 14 is adapted to enter the inverted bottle and is supported at its lower end on a hollow manifold 15 which carries a number of similar tubes, as shown. The tube enters the manifold from above and is clamped thereto between a co11ar16 and a screw 17, .the latter being threaded into the tube from below. A slot 18 formed in the tube provides communication with the interior space of the manifold. The `upper end of the tube carries a cap 19 provided with inclined nozzle openings 20 through which jets of a cleaning or rinsing fluid, such as water or a solution, are forced into the the manifold 15.v Thejets may also have a tangential direction with respect to the tube.

Suitable crosshead means, such as that shown in United States Patent '-Nos. 1,429,960 and 1,813,066, may be provided for reciprocating the manifold to project the tube intothe bottle and to withdraw it from the bottle.

The outer surface of the tube 14 is provided with numerous projections or teeth, here indicated to be formed by a sharp-edged buttress thread 21, the shoulders thereof facing downwardly.

Any loose foreign articles, such as corks, cigar stubs, and papers, in the inverted bottle fall toward the neck portion thereof, a cork 22 being indicated in the drawing as representative of the foreign articles. The cork becomes wedged between the side wall of the bottle and the serrated tube, and when the tube is withdrawn the cork is drawn downwardly, being deformed or mutilated as it is pulled out of the bottle neck. Any foreign articles tending to adhere to the interior surface of the bottle will be flushed toward the neck portion by the injected liquid, and any vsmall fragments torn from the articles will be flushed out of'the bottle. If the withdrawal of the article from the bottle meets with excessive resistance, the movement of the injection tube may be stopped by suitablel slip joint connections commonly used in various parts of bottle washing machines.

What I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

1. A bottle cleaning device comprising a fluid injection tube of a size adapted to enter a bottle from below and having an injection opening and a rigid toothed outer portion lower than said opening for drawing a cork or other foreign article from the bottle, and means communicating with the lower end of the tube for supplying fluid thereto. v

2. A bottle cleaning device comprising a substantially rigid iluid injection tube of a size adapted to enter a bottle from below and having a rigid toothed outer portion for wedging a cork or other foreign article in the bottle between said portion and the inner surface of the bottle and for withdrawing said article by the relative separating' broken .outer surface forming shoulders about the tube for wedgng a foreign article in the bottle between said surface andthe inner surface of the bottle while the article is in any one of `varlous positions around said tube, and for withdrawing said article from the bottle by the rela.- tive separating movement of said tube and bottle.

4. A bottle cleaning device comprising a substantially rigid fluid injection tube adapted to enter bottle from below and having encircling ribs presenting sharp-edged downwardly facing shoulders for wedging a foreign article in the bottle between said ribs and the inner surface of the bottle and for withdrawing said article from the bott-1e by the relative separating movement of said tube and bottle.

GEORGE J. MEYER.

CERTIFICATE on coRREcTIoN.

Patent No. 1, 987, 34s. a Januar', s, 1935.

GEORGE J. MEYER.

'lt ishereby certified that'error appears in the ,.nrlnted specification of the above numbered'patent requiring correction as follows: Page 1,- first column,

line 45, for "as" read not; and same -page and` column, after line 54, insert as line 55, the words bottle, the `fluid passing vthrough the tube from; aud that the said Letters Patent should he read with these corrections therein that the same mayconfor'm to lthe recordof the case in the Patent lOffice.

Signed and sealed this 5th day of March, A. D. 1935.

Leslie Frazer (Seal) l Acting Commissioner of Patents.Y 

